A Homily – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)

First Reading – Genesis 3:9-15, 20 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 97(98):1-4

Second Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:28

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:26-38 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

The reading for from Genesis is a fable, drawn from a book of fables; we cannot take this narrative literally.

Eve is not the mother of all living beings and the garden of Eden was not paradise. This trope refers to the early agricultural civilizations of Summer and Akkad.

The name Adam, or Adamah, means the one who came from the soil, it is a name given to a class of bondsmen (and women), to people who tilled the earth.

This myth does not concern the creation of the universe. Rather, it narrates a critical moment in the history of the Hebrew people, known at the time as the Apiru, or Iberu. It recalls their transition from a time when they lived in a state of relative safety and security in service to the kings of one dynasty or another, a ruling class of priests, priestesses and warriors, followed by the hardship of exile and expulsion, whether self-imposed or forced on them as the consequence of a broken relationship.

Consider the teaching of the psalmist.

It is right and good to praise God, the creator of the universe, it is right and good because the created world is miraculous and beyond the scope of human comprehension…praise God for making it, it is a thing of wonder and beauty. But never forget that God does not determine who will be victorious in combat or any contest. God has no enemies, and in God, within whom all things exist and have their being…there is no conflict.

Be mindful.

It is not God’s justice that we demonstrate in our courts of law, it is human justice. When human justice approximates the justice of God we experience it as mercy, divine justice is restorative, healing…it is then and only then that justice is good.

Remember.

God is kind and faithful to all people, the divine promise is distributed to all people in equal measure.

If you seek to be an instrument of justice, then you must judge fairly, judge kindly and always keep before you the love God bears toward all.

Consider the life of Jesus, and God, whom he called Father and ask yourself this:

Is God glorious?

What is glory?

The apostle informs us that God’s greatest desire is to be in relationship to us, like a parent who loves their children; God desires that each and every one of us comes into the full knowledge of the divine.

There is hope in the knowledge of God, and the hope we have for ourselves, like the hope we hold out for those we love, is a hope that God wishes we would extend to everyone, even those we do not love. This is the way that leads to the knowledge of God.

If you think that God has promised riches and glories to be the inheritance of the saints, remember this, the first will be last and the last will be first. Spiritual riches are not counted in gold and silver and precious things; grace is a manifestation of love, we find it through companionship and friendship with God, and we discover God through our relationships with one another.

Be mindful.

God choses all of us, and in so doing God has determined to accept us as we are; God accepted us even when only the possibility of our being existed. God accepted us then, poured forth the divine love, and prepared a place for us in eternity.

God does nothing for the sake of vanity; God did not create the universe, and us in it, so that God could hear us praise the divine name. The divine has no interest in such things and gives no special consideration to anyone, whether they follow the way as taught by Jesus…or not, whether they were the first workers in the field of good works, or came to it late in the day, whether a person is  more-or-less good…or bad.

Whoever you are and whatever you bring with you, God loves and has prepared a place for you. Hod has promised to heal you, to make you well, and God will do so before the end.

Consider the Gospel reading for today.

You must understand that the stories of his Jesus’ birth, beginning with the annunciation as it is presented here, is just another fable like the Genesis fable we discussed earlier.

More significantly, they are intentional fabrications that amount to a heap of propaganda and in some cases they are adorned with outright lies.

While the Genesis mythology aggregated slowly from an oral tradition before it was ever set down in script, this took place over the course of centuries, possibly even millennia. Whereas the Jesus mythology was a contrivance from the outset, and the version of it that we inherited from the Church was ultimately a product of Roman imperialism, forever conditioned by the machinations of an empire. 

Be mindful.

The spirit of God is the spirit of truth; God’s spirit can never be served by falsehoods and lies.

The annunciation did not happen as recorded, the spirit of God did not impregnate a virgin woman, like Zeus when he impregnated the princess Danae and begetting Perseus…and so forth and so on, ad nauseum.

First Reading – Genesis 3:9-15, 20 ©

The Mother of All Those Who Live

After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’

  Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,

‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts.

You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life.

I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring.

It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’

The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 97(98):1-4

Acclaim the King, the Lord.

Sing a new song to the Lord,

  for he has worked wonders.

His right hand, his holy arm,

  have brought him victory.

The Lord has shown his saving power,

  and before all nations he has shown his justice.

He has remembered to show his kindness

  and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth

  have seen the saving power of our God.

Rejoice in God, all the earth.

  Break forth in triumph and song!

Sing to the Lord on the lyre,

  with the lyre and with music.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn,

  sound jubilation to the Lord, our king.

Let the sea resound in its fullness,

  all the earth and all its inhabitants.

The rivers will clap their hands,

  and the mountains will exult at the presence of the Lord,

  for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge all the world in justice,

  and the peoples with fairness.

 

Second Reading - Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 ©

Before the World Was Made, God Chose Us in Christ

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved, and it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:28

Alleluia, alleluia!

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!

Blessed art thou among women.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:26-38 ©

'I Am the Handmaid of the Lord'

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

 

A Homily – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)